The Guardian Angel (Epiphany day 2)

The story goes that, vacationing in a tiny town on Italy's east coast, Robert and Elizabeth Browning found themselves in a chapel, where they saw a remarkable painting by Guercino, a minor but brilliant painter from a time and place in which brilliant painters could be minor.

Browning was struck by this painting, which depicted a guardian angel protecting a child praying at a tomb, and wrote a poem about it. The poem later wound up in his collection "Men and Women."

A couple of years ago I composed this aria for a special occasion at Baylor University's spectacular Browning Library. Earlier composers that I'm aware of solved the problem of the break in "The Guardian-Angel," five stanzas in, where the speaker turns from the painting to the audience, by simply leaving out the rest. I decided that the rest is still part of the work, and left it in as spoken word. (My ears had become attuned to the possibility of accompanied spoken word by Ben Folds's beautiful project with William Shatner, "Has Been.")

I posted a version of this on my website when I wrote the thing, but today's post is a new, nice, clean remix, with added video of the actual painting as well as my score.

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To find out more about "Epiphany: 50 Days, 50 Songs," visit my website at http://www.barrybrake.com
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Category:

Music

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